The Wine Curmudgeon

Robert Parker, Parkerization, and the judgment of history

Dear Mr. Parker:

I smiled when I read details of your recent interview with the French wine magazine Terre des Vins, where you said you didn’t think Parkerization – the idea that wines should be richer, riper, and more alcoholic, a practice that has become de rigueur for many high-end producers in France and California – existed. It reminded me what Joan Baez once said: That she never wanted to be famous, just well known.

Yes, Parkerizaton exists (as even your wife has apparently noted). Why else would I get a sample of $50, 15.2 percent California pinot noir, other than to impress you? It’s not like anyone else would want to drink it.

Frankly, denying Parkerization is too Shakespeare – you are protesting too much. Instead, you should acknowledge the influence you had on the wine business over the past 20 years, when even the greatest French producers would accept your verdict as gospel. That’s pretty damned impressive.

Before Ernest Hemingway, everyone wrote like Henry James. After Hemingway, everyone wrote like Hemingway. Papa reveled in that, and never tired of reminding the world that he was behind it. See the scenes with F. Scott Fitzgerald in “A Moveable Feast” for evidence.

My guess, and it’s only a guess, because we’ve never met and I don’t know you (though I greatly respect your work) is that you were having a Baez-like moment. Could all the changes in the wine business and the way wine is made have really happened because of you? You were, all those years ago, just an attorney who loved wine. There’s no way you, one man, could have changed so much, is there?

Afraid so, and you only have a couple of choices now. Accept your role, like Hemingway (without the looniness, hopefully). There are an almost infinite number of wine writers who wish they were in that position. Or, if you really think Parkerization is wrong, say so. Say it forcefully and often. Look back at what you wrote and see where, maybe, you opted for unctuousness (one of your favorite terms) over subtlety. And did it happen more often than you remember?

Regardless, accept that most of us would not be doing this sort of thing if not for you. I, for one, am grateful for that.

Sincerely.

Jeff Siegel
The Wine Curmudgeon

How screwed up is three-tier? Plenty, as Missouri can attest

The three-tier system is about money, and not the consumer. Right, Missouri?

Alcohol is distributed through the three-tier system in the U.S., and is constitutionally protected, thanks to several Supreme Court decisions, just like freedom of speech and religion. But that doesn’t mean it deserves that protection.

This was amply demonstrated in Missouri this spring. The state legislature debated a bill that would have restored a law that a federal judge had thrown out, suffered through a filibuster in the state Senate, and almost scuttled much needed legislation to decriminalize home brewing.

None of this effort was intended to benefit consumers, and none of it did. Instead, it was a fight between one distributor, its biggest competitor, and the world’s largest booze companies to redistribute their constitutionally-protected share of the nine-figure Missouri wine, beer and spirits market.

Or, as one eyewitness told me: “It’s chaos.” More, after the jump:

Is Fetzer's Zipz glass the answer for portable wine?

As usual, the answer depends on how much the wine costs. If you have to pay some concessionaire bandit $11 at a baseball game, absolutely not. But if you can find the wine in the plastic glass for $3 at a grocery store, and you’re not fussy about what it tastes like and you want the convenience, you could do worse.

More, after the jump:

Wine studies, wine analysts, and wine foolishness

A couple of months ago, I wrote about what I thought was the dumbest thing ever written about the wine business: That chardonnay was declining in popularity because more Hispanics were drinking wine.

Turns out I was the dumb one, because a study released last month was even sillier – that the Internet and big retailers would eventually put the local wine store out of business. Where do people get these things? And who is goofy enough to pay them to write this stuff? More, after the jump:

On the road with Bieler, Smith and Gott

The wine world has changed, and for the better. How does the Wine Curmudgeon know this? Three of the best winemakers in the U.S. -- all youngish, all talented, and all with top-notch cheap wine -- did a media extravaganza in Dallas. That's not an everyday ocurrence for people who make inexpensive wine, and especially where I am.

Even more impressive? Each, in separate interviews, said that quality cheap wine was the future of the wine business. Talk like that is going to put me out of business. More, after the jump:

Millennials and how they're changing the wine business

Or, as my pal W.R. Tish phrased it in the headline for my story in Beverage Media magazine: “Boom go the Millennials”.

The wine business has mostly accepted that the Millennials, born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, are here to stay; I hardly hear any grumbling about parent’s basements anymore. And, as John Gillespie, the president of the Wine Market Council has said many times, anyone who doesn’t pay attention does so at their own peril.

The story is here. Some of the highlights after the jump:

Diet wine, and why we're stuck with it

One of the Wine Curmudgeon’s regular rants is how old-fashioned, unsophisticated, and wrong-headed most wine marketing is. This is the industry, after all, that still sees wine drinking as the province of middle-aged white men.

Innovation? Nope. Education? Nope? Mostly, just cute labels and names, the same thing that has been going on for the past 20 years. The “Let’s appeal to women with a wine called Little Black Dress” approach is what passes for genius around here.

That’s one of the many reasons why diet wine – wine made not to taste good, but to have fewer calories – is so depressing. It’s a 40-year-old concept that wine is embracing because it doesn’t have any better ideas More, after the jump: